From beginning to end, this episode is far from the series' mold in terms of how the story plays out. We open with a car stopping on a bridge and two men getting out, as we see one of them being shot-and (off-screen) falling into the river below.
Switch to Jessica leaving a hotel, which we learn is in Hartford, Connecticut, after giving a speech, and almost immediately witnessing a car crash with the driver being the murderer we just saw being seriously injured. When Jessica arrives, he pleads for a priest. Jessica barely stands up and asks the crowd around about a nearby church when a car pulls up and out steps a priest, who she summons.
She leans back inside the car and the dying man, thinking the priest is now there, quickly confesses to killing a man that evening, and gives the name of his victim as Carl Cosgrove of the town of Farmington. By the time the priest arrives, the man has died.
Jessica goes to the police station and meets Sergeant Cooper who, as usual, is busy with lots of cases, and who doesn't at all believe that driver in the accident would have confessed anything to this Mrs. Fletcher. To humor her, he calls the Cosgrove home-getting the number from the phone company-and is told by Mrs. Cosgrove that her husband is home in bed and cannot be disturbed.
Jessica, unhappily dismissed by the sergeant, decides to go out to the residence and speak in person to Mrs. Cosgrove. She finds a large house with a gated entrance and a guard at the gate. We see Mrs. Cosgrove (played by Karen Valentine) inside and learn that there are others in the house.
Mrs. C happily admits Jessica and takes her upstairs to see her husband in person. He appears ill, in bed, with an oxygen mask covering much of his face. Jessica politely leaves and we stay to learn that behind the big mirror is another room, where they can see into that bedroom, and there are three men watching and discussing it all.
We get some sense that they are government agents, but nothing definite. The man who played Mr. Cosgrove is, we learn, staying at this government safe house and the others are there to protect him.
Back at her hotel, Jessica gets a call from the priest, identified as Fr. Patrick Francis, asking her to meet him at St. Jerome's, near the hotel. He finds her walking through the empty nave of St. Jerome, and they stand amidst the pews talking. He asks about what the dead man confessed to, since it was intended to be a confession to a priest. After she tells him, he asks if he said who hired him to commit the murder. Again Jessica patiently answers the question with no indication that she even thought this an odd question from a priest.
They are interrupted briefly by a priest walking into the church, who calls out from a dozen or so rows away, asking if he can help, but who then stops when Fr. Francis turns toward him and he sees the Roman collar. Fr. Francis says, "Thanks Father" as he tells him they don't need any help. He then tells Jessica that "Fr. Sweeney's eyesight sometimes fails him."
A moment later, an altar boy, wearing the traditional white surplice and black cassock speaks to the other priest, who then asks if she is Mrs. Fletcher, and when she confirms that she is, he tells her there is a phone call for her that she can take in his office.
When Jessica is picking up the phone she sees the name plate on the desk reading "Fr. Kelly." The call is from Sgt. Cooper. They have found the body of Carl Cosgrove in the river and he wants her to go back to the house to find out what is really going on.
The plot is much more intricate than most shows. What I have revealed, I believe, happened in the first half of the show (I saw it on DVD, so I'm not sure.) I'll leave all of the second half details out of this review: They are not important for my review.
Overall, this was a most interesting episode. They don't keep the viewers in the dark much longer about much of what is going on, but they do keep us guessing about the details, even after there is another murder committed. There weren't any laughs, except the ones I got concerning how woefully weak the writers did in setting up the Catholics as presented.
As far as the script is concerned, we do learn that Jessica was suspicious more than we knew about the priest. His calling the older priest by the wrong name was obvious to us viewers because the camera zoomed in on the nameplate just moments after we heard a different name given. There was another clue for viewers in the know which I'm not going to reveal here.
What didn't work for me in that scene in the church-filmed, I see, at a real church with beautiful stained glass windows in Los Angeles-were a few matters. If the man were really a priest at the church, he would have asked Jessica to meet him in his office, which is normally adjacent to the church itself.
In a big city, like Hartford, in the late 1980s, the church would likely not have been just left open to anyone, due to various possible problems with anyone wandering inside when nobody else was around. As Jessica was walking through, we saw nobody else around until Fr. Francis came in through a side door and called out to her. Normally someone wishing to go in to pray during times when no Mass was about to be celebrated would go to the office to be admitted.
Now even a fairly big church in those years would not have so many priests that they wouldn't all recognize each other. When the older priest came in and offered to help, he stopped as soon as he saw another priest. Realistically, on seeing a strange priest inside his building, he would have continued toward the pair and introduced himself, or inquired why they were meeting inside his church.
The next thing wrong was the appearance of the altar server-all dressed up, ready for a Mass that clearly wasn't going to be celebrated anytime soon. Even if the boy was somehow "helping out" during the daytime (we'll assume it was summer, or some other non-school day) he would not be wearing the two garments they wear during Mass, anymore than the priest would be wearing all that he wears during Mass while wandering about the church hours away from the nearest Mass. (Now the priests WERE dressed properly, no problem there.)
The last thing that was a "goof" to me was that when the Hartford police sergeant moved to investigating the murder in the Farmington home, he described it as having taken place "in his precinct." It is a separate city and has been since 1645. We had several setting pictures of a "police station" where the sergeant worked, not a "sheriff's department" so I don't believe anyone can claim that Jessica was working with a sheriff's deputy like she might well do in Cabot Cove, where Amos is the sheriff, allowing him to cover crimes all around the county, not just in the town.
But these sloppy writing examples did not ruin the show, which I give a score of 9 to.
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